Tag: classic wedding

Hi there friend, it is about time that I update you on the wedding planning progress. Well, it doesn’t really feel like there is much progress at all at this point, but there is some.

Let me quickly vent about how ridiculously expensive everything is!!! I knew that planning a wedding would be expensive, but not this expensive!! I just hope our budget will cover everything at the end. (Maybe I should do a post about how much everything cost us when the wedding is over. Mmmm…)

The previous post was about our color theme; if you want to catch up on that you can read about it here.

I went to see two florists. Man, I was shocked about how much it cost for the flowers alone. I wanted to have those rectangular wooden boxes filled with flowers and greenery, more greenery than flowers, but still, I wanted it to feel luxurious. But the price changed my mind. So, I am changing my ideas again to fit the budget, a very tight budget might I add. The conclusion I came to about the flowers was this: bigger vase = more flowers = more money. Eish… so smaller arrangements it is!

Our photographer is very affordable and we worked with her before and we were really pleased with the way the photos came out. I also looked at her portfolio for weddings that she photographed before and the photos were stunning!

We booked the Queens Hotel’s restaurant, The Colony, as our venue. The restaurant had a renovation in the past month, and the end result was disappointing to me. They exchanged the warm traditional look for a cool modern one. In my opinion, they kind of ruined the feel of what the hotel is known for. The new colors are tones of grey, which messes with my color scheme! They also changed out the wooden chairs for grey upholstered chairs. When I saw the new chairs I immediately asked if they still have the old ones, luckily, they still do. And they agreed that we can use the old chairs for the wedding. Phew, one thing that makes it a bit better.

You might ask why I do not want to change the venue as the wedding date is still a long way off. The answer is simple. The budget. They charge us nothing to rent the restaurant for the wedding, we just pay for the food and the champagne. That is a big win in my book! I think that you will not really notice if the wedding color scheme clashes with the rest of the restaurant when the lights are dimmed and the tables are beautifully decorated! And guests don’t really remember the color scheme and the decorations a few months later.

We will be spending our first night as husband and wife in the hotel as well. Which is great, because then we don’t have to go anywhere when we are tired from all the dancing! I plan to close the place down with dancing! The hotel gave us a nice discount on our stay and also a bit of a discount for our guests.

Everyone tells you that planning a wedding is stressful, but you don’t know how stressful until you are planning one. I think the most stressful thing about planning the wedding is fitting everything that you will need within the budget and still get everything you’ve dreamed off.

The past two months of actively wedding planning I learned that you have to be flexible. You probably won’t find everything you see on Pinterest, and you have to be okay with that. You will have to be creative and find ways to make your dream wedding a reality.

I think because I mentioned the budget so much, it is only fitting for me to give you a free printable that is wedding budget-related.😊 What do you think?

I always thought that I would have a spring wedding with soft pastel colours. But that changed since Wiehann and I started to discuss colour schemes. He quickly put an end to my pastel dream. There wasn’t even a way to persuade him. When I asked him why, his answer was: “the colours are dead”. My reaction: “WHAT?!” and then we had to choose the date… another nail in my pastel dream, because spring was out, and so was summer… I can almost feel your frown through my computer screen at the moment, but don’t worry, mine was also almost carved into my forehead.

The reasons why these seasons was crossed off the list, was simple. Summer in Oudtshoorn is extremely hot. Some days reaching 40˚C. So that was a no no in both our books. No melting make-up and no sweaty armpits on the wedding photos!!! Spring time is also problematic because of my allergies. So that left autumn and winter. And to make a long story short – we decided on May, because we started to date in May, and May 2018 we will be together for 10 years – so some sentimental value was a big push for that specific date.

But after that discussion, and a bit of disappointment, I had to change my vision. Which is not always a bad thing. After all the day is not all about the bride (even if you want it to be 😊). So I started pinteresting my way through alternative colour schemes.

Who thought that there were so many options available. Pinks, purples, reds, blues etc etc…. after a while I realized that I have to narrow down my search, because I didn’t find anything that I liked! I mean I liked a lot of them, but not like-like you know?

Lightbulb! I started to search for autumn and winter weddings. And I swooned… OH MY WORD!!! Winter and autumn weddings are beautiful! All those rich dark colours that were available just made me so excited!

After another long scrolling through pinterest, and showing Wiehann a few ideas, we decided on:

These colors just make me so happy! They are warm, inviting and cozy for an autumn. I have so many ideas it feels like my head wants to short out sometimes! Here are a few images that I’ve found that are my source of inspiration…

I love how they combined the rustic with the elegant! Show you that everything can match if you just put the right things together! To see more of the pictures that I’ve collected for inspiration you can follow my Pinterest wedding board

If you want to read the other posts in this series you can find them here:

I am a sucker for cute printables and organized systems, and not to toot my own horn, but I am quite an organized person. I love making lists, and I get all giddy when I see my to-do list getting shorter and shorter. Now, staying organized while planning a wedding, I think, is crucial. In this post, I will share with you how I plan to stay organized and keep on top of all the arrangements.

I’ve researched a lot of wedding planning tips and ideas and the wedding binder sounded like the best option. And Tada!!!

My wedding binder was born. In this binder, you will find that I’ve put together all the things I think I would need to stay organized. Let me show you how the planner looks. May I add, I am very proud how it turned out. (please note that all the pages in the binder are in Afrikaans, my home language)

I’ve made the material cover myself. One of my first sewing projects I’ve done with my sewing machine.

When you open the binder, you will find and index. The index gives a summary of the things that is included in the binder. After the index, you will find checklists of things that have to be done for every category. I’ve compiled these lists after researching and reading through a lot of blogs and wedding books and I hope that I have included the most important things for a wedding to run smoothly.

The dividers I’ve made with card stock and some beautiful scrapbooking paper that was on sale at PNA.

After the index and the checklists, you will find the different categories. Let me break it down for you:

Budget and monthly timeline

This, I would think, is self-explanatory.

Ceremony

Here I will have the contact details of the pastor, and the church. (we are planning on asking a pastor that we know, but we want to use another church for the ceremony) I will also include any notes on what kind of décor I want at the church and more important what Wiehann and I want the pastor to talk about at the wedding.

Reception

Here you will find contact details of the place where the reception will be. A list of the music that we want to play, a worksheet of the things that we want to hire for the reception. I will also include pictures of décor ideas and activities for the guests to keep themselves busy while we take some photos. I will also include the contract of the venue here.

Caterer and wedding cake

Here you will find the menu and also the baker’s contact details and pictures of wedding cakes for inspiration. After we select a baker, I will put the contract here as well.

Florist

Florist’s contact details and the contact we will sign with them. I want to include pictures here to explain to the florist what I want and ask him or her if they will be able to do achieve it and give me advice for an alternative flower that I can use if the ones that I want are not available.

Videographer and photographer

Again, contact details and contracts. This category also includes a list of photos and moments I want the photographer and the videographer to capture of our special day.

Bride and groom

Here I include pictures of what I want my wedding dress to look like and ideas for the groom aswell. There is also a checklist of all the attire related items that we need to buy or rent.

Bridal party

I am going to ask our bridal party to buy their own clothes. But here I will keep track of who has what and the gifts I am going to buy for them.

Guests and stationary

Here I will put the final guest list with their contact details and keep track if they have RSVP’d.

I’ve found this cute little notebook on sale at Typo’s and I keep this one in my handbag for random thoughts and notes that might pop into my head. I plan on taking the binder with me to appointments only.

Pens and a calculator will accompany the binder most of the time.

At this stage, I am not sure how much this binder cost me because I’ve had most of the materials already. I’ve created the pages in word and printed it off my home printer.

Phew!!! Information overload I think. I would love to hear what you think of this binder. Would you mind answering a question for me in the comment section below? I would like to know if you would rather buy a binder that is ready made or make one yourself?

Now that we are engaged and we have set a date to get married, I am getting really excited!!! We decided on the 12th of May 2018. So now the wedding planning can start in full swing as the date is a year away.

Let me tell you, I’ve been planning this wedding for a long time, for almost two years to be precise. So, you can just imagine how thrilled I am to get my ideas out of my head and finally into something I can see and touch. My taste has changed considerably the last few years, but I like the end picture that I am seeing for the wedding.

Words that I would describe the wedding I want to have at the end of the day would be: elegant; romantic with a touch of royalty… MMM… maybe that sounds too cliché, but at this stage, I do not care, that is what I want (and luckily, Wiehann has not opposed to any of my ideas yet! Phew!!!).

I’ve decided that I want to start my wedding journey here on the blog. A wedding what? Well, I am glad you asked.

Our wedding journey will be about my planning (and things I do to keep myself organized and sane), my DIY efforts to save money and everything I want to do to make our dream a reality. There will be a new post every two weeks on the blog that I will share my progress and maybe a few tutorials that I’ve followed to create some décor pieces. We will see how it goes.

I am really excited to share this with all of you and hope to give any future brides some tips (and maybe sound advice) and ideas as the planning progress.

Topics to discuss

Let’s be social

Copyright

I really appreciate it when you share some of my content! But, please keep in mind that all information and images stay the property of coffeewithnadine.com You may use one or two photos provided that you link back to the original blog post. Please do not crop, edit images or remove watermarks without my consent. All free printables offered on the blog are for personal use only.